


You are ugly too

by Ashesofthisworld



Category: Crankiplier- Fandom, Markiplier- Fandom, Unus Annus- Fandom, crankgameplays- fandom
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ethan has a dent on his cheek, Ethan its tired and Mark falls in love with him, M/M, Mark has a burn scar, Strangers to Lovers, first work on the fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26961586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashesofthisworld/pseuds/Ashesofthisworld
Summary: Maybe those love movies weren't made for they. They, who were ugly and cryed in the bathrooms and not in the body of they loved one. They were too realistic to identify themselves with the plastic actors, Mark with a burn scar on his face and Ethan with a dented cheek°•°•°•°••°°•°°•°°•
Relationships: Mark Fischbach & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 1
Kudos: 55





	You are ugly too

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first work for this fandom and idk how ao3 works so let's hope this can be post correctly lol. Also I'm not a native english speaker, so if you see any grammatical errors let me know! I'm writing this to learn too.  
> This is also highly based on the uruguayan tale "La noche de los feos" from the author Mario Benedetti. You can find it in english titled as "the night of the ugly ones" Give it a shot too!  
> Anyways, hope you enjoy the reading!

Mark was ugly. The kind of ugly that people viewed with an air of superiority. The kind of unfortunate who made you stroke your face, thankful you didn't play the same luck as the poor bastard. 

He had been cursed when he was a teenager, a fire that broke into his house burned from his left cheek to under his eye. The mark didn't make him feel proud of having survived, it made him feel like the victim of a catastrophe that might as well have ended his suffering instead of leaving him half disfigured for the rest of his life. 

The burn made him sad, disgusted. It was not an emblem, it was a stain that he saw in the mirror and could not remove no matter how many times he rubbed his reflection with his sleeve.

Mark was ugly and he knew it, that's why he was hiding behind a hood, in a crowded place waiting to enter a dark room where no one could trace his burn with disgusted eyes. In the line of a cinema, to be more precise, where nobody stopped twice to see the same face, because you only came to see the beautiful seasonal actors on the big screen. 

Mark got a few looks while he waited, he wouldn't deny that there were thoughtful people who couldn't keep their gaze straight, but there was one in particular that he returned without a drop of anger.

In the row perpendicular to him (the one for the popcorn), behind an animated couple, a person looked at him cheekily, from the shadows, but not maliciously.  
He had soft eyes, the purest understanding Mark had received that day. 

Mark's eyes dared to drop from the calm blue irises to the reason for his discreet solidarity. A dent ran down from his cheekbone to his chin, the curve as deep as a punch, as well as fresh and even, as if it were a birth defect. His mouth did not form an O as several discourteous people had already reacted to his scar, rather on the contrary, he was calm knowing that it was not the only phenomenon at first glance.

He looked again at those beautiful blue eyes, which now seemed more gray and tired in detail, and gave a half smile, the kind that made the left corner of his mouth rise over the monstrous scarred skin. The boy nodded slowly, his fluffy hair moving with the action, and he proceeded to look straight ahead again, to speak to the energetic couple who were now inviting him into their conversation, ending his friendly connection with the stranger. His friends, Mark guessed by how the boy nodded and laughed with them as he played with the sleeves of his yellow hoodie.

Mark felt alone again in his own world, away from that warm gaze, facing the back of a complete stranger who would never turn to see him if not with disgust.

[...]

The line advanced slowly, but almost invisible presence of the young man to his left made the wait more comfortable. Still, when it came his turn to enter, the man didn't muster enough courage to look to his left one last time before entering the movie theater.

Inside the dark room, Mark let out a sigh, finally shedding the hood that partially covered his face and heading to one of the farthest seats from the screen, where he knew no one would be able to throw popcorn at him like it was a circus show.  
Mark could hear the tape roll smoothly as the commercials played on the big screen, and out of sheer boredom and curiosity, he watched the seats in front of him without expecting to find anything in particular.

The half-lit shadows of pairs of heads made a romantic scene, everyone sitting in nearby seats, reclining or chatting eagerly. Old and young, everyone had someone to share the moment with, except for two people. The first, Mark himself, who was looking bittersweet at the caresses of others, and the second, about two rows to the left of his seat, a smiling man chatting with a couple. The man was distanced by a carton of popcorn that occupied the bonding seat between him and his friends, looking sadly at his hands when he felt excluded from the conversation. Mark looked at his face outlined in the blue glow of a water advertisement, the familiar cleft of his cheek less apparent in the dark if you didn't look closely to trace it. Mark did that, watching his face closely.

He observed how the slit moved slightly when the young man smiled, how it contorted when he spoke. He was fascinated by how the stranger fixed a lock of hair behind that beautifully constructed ear and how he was startled when he returned the hand and his fingers lightly touched the cleft.

He spent most of the film immersed in the young man's imperfection, sometimes returning his gaze with some bitterness to the screen, where the two perfectly sculpted faces shared a kiss that earned the applause of the audience.  
Near the end of the play, the female protagonist cried happy crocodile tears on the body of his lover, the plastic makeup did not move an inch from her face. Both stickily in love, admiring each other's features. Calling each other "Gorgeous", "Beautiful" and "Perfect" in a display of superficial love.

Among all the romantic drama, Mark found one scene that squeezed his heart more than the falsity of the screen. The young man was crying silently, real red eyes and water heavy on his lashes. It didn't take long for the tears to descend, finding their way over the man's cleft. The young man was sniffing, one hand covering his flaw with shame, as if seeing a reality in the movie that denigrated him. That he also envied, because it could never be possible.

The young man quickly apologized to his friends, who were gawking at the film and barely glanced at him out of the corner of their eye, and quickly left the movie theater. Mark felt his anxiety rise, his concern for the stranger almost unintelligible.  
He did not debate it much with his unconscious and, allowing himself to be carried away by that atypical instinct, Mark rose from his seat and at a hurried pace followed the invisible trail of the stranger.

[...]

Leaving the movie theater, all eyes were on the second monster that appeared in front of those doors that night. Silence flooded the lines at the entrance for seconds that seemed endless to the spectators of the scene, but Mark didn't care, he wasn't focused on the weight of his presence. He did not mind walking slowly to examine all the possible exits the young man could have taken, and above all he did not mind not taking the time to put on his hood and hide from the neon light. 

Mark was lost, searching for the boy's blue irises among the seas of eyes that stared back at him in disgust.  
In a quick moment of victory he thought as only the two of them could. He went to look for the bathroom, the stereotypical refuge for the ugly ones.

[...]

Mark entered the bathroom, the sound of the door alerting the only man in the room. At the level of his feet, on the almost clean tiles and under the long marble slab of the sink, the young man was looking up in surprise. The tears continued to fall from the stranger lower eyelashes like waterfalls, and those caring blue eyes now reflected more of that tired gray of his soul. Mark didn't know how to react, he didn't know whether to act their meeting as a fluke even if his worried gaze told a different story or run away from the situation and leave the man to suffer alone.

The silence of the unexpected encounter did not last long. Mark, static in front of the closed bathroom door, could hear a whisper between the sobs;

-You followed me- He heard the man say. 

The major's mouth fell open instantly to justify his actions. Mark didn't want misunderstandings about why he followed the young man to the bathroom, but when he tried to explain himself, his mind hadn't even found the answer yet. So he was standing there, looking at the man with genuine solidarity in his eyes, the words on the tip of his tongue but only managing to nod to continue the conversation.

-You're ugly too- assured the minor, using a sleeve to wipe the drops of water that wet the cheekbone above its cleft. 

Mark saddened at the truth of the words, and brought a hand simultaneously to his burn, feeling the coolness of a couple of tears on his broken skin. He also remembered those piercing glances when he left the movie theater and the realization crept up on his face, leaving shivers in every battered pore and only added sadness to the weight of the minor's observation.  
Mark felt a lump on his throat beginning to form. He pushed his pride aside and spoke in a cracking voice.

-Yes, I followed you. But not because you were ugly like me. 

The young man on the floor looked at him in surprise, his eyes searching for any trace of lies at the same time as his smile twisted cynically. Of course they were both ugly, if not, why were they hiding in a bathroom lamenting their scars?

-You are not like those plastic faces on the big screen- said Mark, a part of him seeing himself reflected in the young man on the floor, drowning in his unfair self-hatred-You are not like your friends either, we don't have to lie to each other.

The younger boy's smile arched listlessly again, his lower lip quivering from the apparent joke. He wanted to scream, he wanted to kick because things were not fair and the stranger was only reaffirming it in a sadistic way. Wasn't that what he wanted anyway, someone else to confirm that this world had cursed them for never fitting in?

Mark felt the gears in the man's head jam and screech, overthinking everything before he could excuse himself and finish the last sentence.

-But- he continued, taking a step forward and seeing how the man flinched, his hands involuntarily half covering his ears- you're not ugly. 

The minor did not understand. This stranger had come to the bathroom to comfort him, but there was not a trace of sorrow in his gaze, only realization and pain. He shook his head, the damp sleeves of his hoodie making fists on themselves. 

-Why should I believe another ugly one that I'm not like him? - The minor excused himself, his nails digging into the fabric and the words leaving his mouth in exasperation- You want to believe it too, don't you?

Mark shook his head and nodded at the same time, his gaze unable to meet the young man's eyes full of anger and bewilderment because, deep down, he knew he couldn't fight the truth.

-Well, no! No one will ever whisper "Beautiful", "Gorgeous", "Perfect" to us or even sit next to us in the movie theater! - The young man exploded, putting his hands to his hair and stretching it with his last shreds of anger. 

His knees connected with his chest instinctively, shivering like a candle slowly fading. His eyes were tired of crying, all the blue of his irises clouded by the gray of the storm. He was defeated, too weak and exposed to continue the discussion. 

Mark stared at him, the younger boy's chest rising and falling with more high-pitched sobs. He approached the young man slowly, not knowing how to console him, and collapsed by his side, without even affecting the sad young man closed in on himself. They were both shaking, their sored breaths filling the air in the bathroom.

The atmosphere descended into one of peace when their sockets couldn't cry anymore, when all the frustration in their brains had been vented into moans and sobs. Mark looked at the younger, his curved form hiding his face under the yellow cloth that covered his arms. 

They were both so close, but they didn't feel the same closeness they shared in the line at the cinema. At that moment, Mark did not understand the hatred that the young man professed for himself, nor could he hear the harsh words that brought Mark down in this bathroom. At that time they did not fully know each other, they only shared superficial glances. You could tell they tried to cheer themselves up in that row, but they hid deep down their dislike for the ugly. Both reflected in the scar of the other, both lonely in a sea of strict normality. They hated each other and everything they saw on their faces, but at least they did it silently.

No, they couldn't hate each other. At least Mark didn't feel that way when he looked at the young man's silky hair and imagined stroking it in the movie theater, both of them stepping away from the surface world to create their own bubble for themselves. The ugly bubble, Mark thought, but the more he heard that word, the less it made sense to describe themselves that way.

-When I saw you at the movie theater- Mark began to relate, straining his voice so that it came out sweet, but conforming at the end with that aggravated and trembling tone that was left after crying- It was as if the word ugly made no sense.

The young man poked out a confused eye, part of his visible cheek flushed as he deciphered the indirect message. Still, his gaze held doubts about the true meaning of those words. His shoulders were still elevated, shielding the rest of his body as well. His back was still tense, waiting for the punchline of a hurtful joke. 

-Ugly, who could say that about someone so unique?- The older continued, a half smile involuntarily appearing on his face.

The younger looked at him with both orbs now, his pupils expanded and the blush taking over his cheekbones and ears. He was surprised, also confused by the compliment. Unique, he thought, no one referred to an ugly man like that with such sincere feelings. Usually they did it with sorrow, as if being unique was the compensation for being born deformed. But Mark understood what it meant to be unique, and he showed it by tracing with adoring eyes the already visible cleft of the young man.

The younger one relaxed, raising his face so that the older one could examine his birthmark more closely. He also looked at the older man's burn. He admired the hairless part of his contoured jaw and how the wound ended gently under the man's almond-shaped eyes. 

On a large scale, the younger realized that the man in front of him was beautiful. His burn didn't overshadow his long hair or his soft lips. It only added history, something unique to the face of the stranger. 

Ethan extended one arm, his fingers slowly approaching the other's mark. Mark moved closer to the digits, accepting the shy caress, and closed his eyes to let the other explore the damaged skin without pressure.

-I fell so fast for you, that I didn't even think about it. I didn't follow you to the bathroom because you were ugly, I followed you because you mesmerized me. 

Upon hearing the confession, the young man's heart jumped a rhythm, his eyes watering slightly but unable to burst into tears as before. He had felt empty and lost all his adulthood, and now this man came out of nowhere to make him feel appreciated and understood. It was unreal, but the youngest was too tired to fight that idea. Too tired of not being able to have good things, of running away from other people, even unique people like him. Then he remembered how he hurtled Mark and how he closed in on himself, too used to the bitter taste of being despised. He had been ignorant, and now with his full hand stroking the damaged area of the other man's cheek he could confirm where he had been wrong without a doubt.

-You're not ugly- He affirmed, his palm still rising and falling, still gently stroking over the burn. Mark opened his eyes, those black wells of adoration shocked at the mixture of praise and apology. 

The older one brought a trembling hand to the younger's face, placing it over the slit. He contoured from cheekbone to chin, his digits delicately exploring the barrel. 

-We are not ugly- expressed Mark, with a deep blush and a look of adoration that the young man returned proudly. 

-We're not ugly- Ethan repeated.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for making it to the end! I really appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed reading it ^^ ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡


End file.
